Chimera

Начало книги

A light rain fell on the forest, the tiny droplets pattering softly on the leaves far overhead. The drips collected in the grooves of the leaves and the wrinkles in the bark, worming their way down until they grew too large and too heavy, and they fell again, plummeting to the soft earth to land with heavy plops in the muddy puddles. Asha paused beside a tree to look up at the bright slivers and patches of the sky between the branches where the sun was burning brightly beyond the clouds, its light obscured by the thunderheads rumbling overhead.

Wet forest sounds rose and fell all around her. The applause of the falling water, the shaking of the leaves and slender branches, the distant cracking and keening of trees tearing free from the muddy earth and toppling over into their unsuspecting brothers and sisters.

It had been raining for three days. Sometimes more, sometimes less. In the middle of the day with the sun high overhead, Asha felt the warmth creeping back into the soil and the air, and the hours of walking along the narrow dirt path were almost pleasant. Her long black hair clung to her neck and face and back, and cold trickles of water snaked down her skin under her clothes, but she didn’t mind. Not during the day.

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